Link v. Commonwealth

• Decision Date: 17 October 1924
• Parties: LINK v. COMMONWEALTH.
• Court: Kentucky Court of Appeals

265 S.W. 804

205 Ky. 243

LINK v. COMMONWEALTH.

Court of Appeals of Kentucky.

October 17, 1924

Rehearing Denied Dec. 5, 1924.

Appeal from Circuit Court, Jefferson County, Common Pleas Branch Second Division.

Proceeding by the Commonwealth, through its Revenue Agent, against A. M Link, doing business in the name of the Louisville Loan Company. Judgment for the Commonwealth, and defendant appeals. Affirmed.

Fred Starck and Doolan & Doolan, all of Louisville, for appellant.

D. O Myatt, of Louisville, for the Commonwealth.

THOMAS J.

The General Assembly at its 1920 session enacted chapter 158, p 678, of the published acts of that session, which was a wholly independent act, and imposed an annual license tax on certain named avocations and professions including those "of doing business as a loan company," the amount of the annual tax on such a business being fixed at $250. Appellant. A. M. Link, prior and subsequent to that time was and has been individually engaged in that business in the city of Louisville, and he declined to pay the tax for two of the years since taking effect of the act, and this proceeding was instituted against him in Jefferson county by the commonwealth through its revenue agent, as is provided by section 4263--4 of the 1922 Carroll's Edition of Kentucky Statutes. Payment of the taxes, including the imposed penalty for such refusal was resisted by appellant upon the ground that the 1920 act was unconstitutional because (1) it was in violation of the provisions of section 51 of that instrument, and (2) that banks, trust companies, and building loan associations were expressly excluded from the operation of the act and that exclusion worked, as contended, an unlawful classification and rendered the act inoperative as to appellant. The court ruled against him and rendered judgment in favor of plaintiff for the license fees for the two delinquent years with a 20% penalty thereon, and complaining of that judgment he prosecutes this appeal.

It is urged in support of ground (1) that by an act of 1906, which was subsequently incorporated in the Kentucky Statutes as section 4224 as a part of the statutes on revenue and taxation, the same occupations covered by the 1920 act were annually taxed at named rates, and that the effect of the latter act was to amend the then section of the Kentucky Statutes, which was the 1906 act, and that it was therefore necessary, under the provisions of section 51 of the Constitution, to set out in the 1920 act the entire 1906 act as amended by the later act; all of which would be true if the 1920 act had purported on its face, either in its title or in its body, to amend the 1906 act or any other existing statute, as this court has held in an unbroken line of decisions, two of the latest of which are Board of Penitentiary Commissioners v. Spencer, 159 Ky. 255, 166 S.W. 1017, and South v. Fish, 181 Ky. 349, 205 S.W. 329. There are many other intervening ones. But in the Spencer Case, the contention here made was expressly decided against appellant in these words found in the opinion on page 263 (166 S.W. 1021):

"This part of the section [51] has of course no application to acts that do not purport to revise, amend, or extend another act or law. When the Legislature comes to enact new laws under appropriate titles, its power is not in any manner limited by this provision, and it may act entirely independent of and without reference to it. Of course many laws that are enacted by the Legislature touch in some way existing laws either by amending, extending, or repealing them; but notwithstanding this, the Legislature, by a new act that does not purport in its title or body to amend, revise, or extend an existing law, may in fact revise, amend, or extend it, free from the control of section 51, and this has been often done."

All of our other opinions dealing with this phase of the application of section 51 of the Constitution have steadfastly followed the construction announced in the Spencer opinion, and which conforms to the general law as applied by other courts, as will be seen from the text in 25 R. C. L. 874. There is nothing in the 1920 act to exclude it from the rule announced in the Spencer Case and in the referred-to text, and this objection to its constitutionality, in so far as it relates to the...